Archives for March 14, 2019

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) announced Wednesday in a statement that plans are underway for the development of a digital asset platform ready to roll out in 2020.

SET is working along with several third-party financial collaborators to develop the software platform that it envisions “leveling up investment experiences for more convenience and higher speed” for its clients as well as offering exchange services for digital assets.

These include FundConnext’s mutual fund platform, which will be linked with a global fund processing platform operated by Clearstream named Vestima.

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SET President Pakorn Peetathawatchai said:

“SET strongly believes that the collaboration with all stakeholders in enhancing the existing infrastructures that are a backbone of the current ecosystem and in building the new digital asset ecosystem will be a turning point that will take the Thai capital market to the next level.”

In addition to offering Thai investors a more robust platform for trading global securities, including cryptocurrencies, SET is going completely paperless, allowing clients to open paperless accounts digitally through electronic identification verification

The Thai stock exchange reportedly had a three-year plan for the cryptocurrency platform but scrapped it in favor of a 2020 target for supporting crypto trades on the SET.

The plans are similar to those of some major European securities exchanges in Germany and Switzerland that announced upcoming crypto exchanges of their own last month.

Thai Government Regulators Are Both Heavy-Handed and Friendly to Crypto

Thai financial regulators want to create a welcoming environment for digital assets to grow the country’s wealth, but they haven’t been welcoming to the cryptocurrencies they outright banned.| Source: Shutterstock

Thai securities regulators, which have already approved a dedicated initial coin offering (ICO) portal, are cooperating with the crypto industry with the hopes of attracting direct foreign investment by making Thailand a crypto friendly jurisdiction.

At the same time, Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission has been heavy-handed and draconian about picking winners and losers in the cryptocurrency industry instead of allowing the market to work.

Ostensibly these rather odious strictures on digital commerce in Thailand are for the protection of investors, but the Thai SEC has outright banned bitcoin cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), and Ethereum Classic (ETC) from initial coin offerings, investments, and base trading pairs with other currencies on digital asset exchanges.

Although Thailand is nominally a parliamentary democracy, it has been under the de facto rule of a military junta since 2014, yet the country is making remarkable strides in economic development, such as SET’s exchange modernization, which is now charging full steam ahead amid political instability and troubled elections.

Ripple price failed to hold gains above the $0.3120 and $0.3100 supports against the US dollar.The price tested the $0.3060 support and it is currently trading near the $0.3100 pivot level.There is a key contracting triangle in place with resistance at $0.3110 on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair (data source from Kraken).The pair could either dip sharply below $0.3060 or it may rise above the $0.3110 and $0.3120 resistances.Ripple price trimmed its recent gains and declined against the US Dollar and bitcoin. XRP/USD might accelerate losses if it fails to break the $0.3120 resistance level in the near term.Ripple Price AnalysisYesterday, we saw a nice upward move in ripple price above the $0.3150 and $0.3200 resistances against the US Dollar. The XRP/USD pair even tested the $0.3250 level, but it failed to hold gains. As a result, there was a sharp decline below the $0.3200 and $0.3150 levels. The price even spiked below the $0.3120 support and the 100 hourly simple moving average. A swing low was formed at $0.3060 before the price corrected higher during BTC and Ethereum recovery.The price moved above the $0.3080 level and tested the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the recent drop from the $0.3245 high to $0.3061 low. However, the price seems to be facing a strong resistance near the $0.3105 level and the 100 hourly SMA. Besides, there is a key contracting triangle in place with resistance at $0.3110 on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair. If the pair manages to climb above the $0.3110 and $0.3120 resistance levels, there could be a decent recovery.The next resistance is near the $0.3150 level. It represents the 50% Fib retracement level of the recent drop from the $0.3245 high to $0.3061 low. On the other hand, if the price fails to move above the $0.3110 resistance, there may be a sharp dip. The $0.3060 support is crucial, below which the price might decline heavily. The next key supports are near $0.3040 and $0.3015.Looking at the chart, ripple price is currently trading near a crucial juncture below the $0.3110 resistance. If buyers fail to gain strength, the price might start a nasty decline below $0.3060. In the short term, there could be range moves before the price either climbs above $0.3120 or revisits the $0.3060 support level.Technical IndicatorsHourly MACD – The MACD for XRP/USD is slowly moving back into the bullish zone.Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for XRP/USD is struggling to stay above the 50 level and moving lower with a bearish angle.Major Support Levels – $0.3060, $0.3040 and $0.3015.Major Resistance Levels – $0.3110, $0.3120 and $0.3150.

ETH price managed to stay above the $130 support level and recovered above $132 against the US Dollar.There were swing moves near $130 before the price settled above the $132 pivot level.This week’s important bearish trend line was breached with resistance at $131 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD (data feed via Kraken).The pair is now facing a solid resistance near the $134 level and it could extend gains in the near term.Ethereum price spiked a few times higher against the US Dollar and bitcoin. ETH formed a solid support near $130 and it may climb higher above the $134 and $135 resistance levels.Ethereum Price AnalysisYesterday, we saw a few swing moves near the $130 level in ETH price against the US Dollar. The ETH/USD pair spiked sharply below the $130 and $129 levels and later recovered above the $130 level. Later, there were consolidation moves before the price climbed above the $131 and $132 resistance levels. More importantly, there was a close above the $132 resistance and the 100 hourly simple moving average.During the upside, this week’s important bearish trend line was breached with resistance at $131 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD. The pair broke the 50% Fib retracement level of the last slide $135 swing high to $129 swing low. It opened the doors for more gains above the $132 level. There was also a spike above the $133 level, but upsides were capped by the key $134 resistance. The price also faced sellers near the 76.4% Fib retracement level of the last slide $135 swing high to $129 swing low. It is currently consolidating above the $132 support and the 100 hourly SMA.On the upside, the price needs to clear the $134 resistance to continue higher. The next main resistance is near the last swing high at $135. Once the price clears both hurdles, it is likely to test the $140 resistance. On the other hand, if there is a downside correction, the $132 level might provide support. Any further losses might push it back towards the $130 support.Looking at the chart, ETH price clearly made a few nasty moves, but it managed to settle above $132, which is a positive sign. As long as it stays above the $132 support and the 100 hourly SMA, it remains supported for more upsides towards the $135, $137 and $140 levels.ETH Technical IndicatorsHourly MACD – The MACD for ETH/USD is gaining pace in the bullish zone.Hourly RSI – The RSI for ETH/USD climbed well above the 60 level and it is currently correcting lower towards 55.Major Support Level – $132Major Resistance Level – $135

Many claim the market has bottomed out. Meanwhile, wealthy investors and institutional money are only too aware of the Bitcoin’s potential.

Faber said he bought Bitcoin around the end of February. Prices were hovering around $3.8k per coin. He believes BTC now looks better from a technical perspective. The crash of Bitcoin contributes to his analysis.

During the interview he hinted that while not guaranteed, the future for bitcoin was good.

He said:

It’s not certain, but possible, that Bitcoin will be the standard for money transfers.

Faber is probably the best-known, but also the most controversial, Swiss investor.

As well as being nicknamed Dr. Doom or “the crash prophet”, he gained international recognition after predicting the Black Monday stock market crash in 1987.

He’s well known for his regular criticism of central banks and traditional monetary policy.

It’s no secret Ethereum was among the hardest hit coins during the crypto winter after a tough year of regulatory uncertainty surrounding security tokens and ICOs. If anyone should seem worried, it would be blockchain pioneer Joseph Lubin, whose company ConsenSys is an incubator for Ethereum projects. Yet, he couldn’t appear further from losing sleep. Lubin was featured as the Interactive Keynote speaker at SXSW 2019, where he shared his zen vibe with a live audience, saying:

“Ethereum is not going away. It’s not going to fail. It will remain very significant.” *

Are Ethereum Tokens Securities?

Increasingly, there are reasons to be optimistic about the Ethereum’s future. Most recently SEC Chairman Jay Clayton seemingly agreed that digital assets might not be securities based on the Howey framework. ConsenSys is “intimately associated with the Ethereum protocol.” It has 85 Ethereum blockchain protocol engineers busy building day in and day out.

“ConsenSys projects and tools are focused on Ethereum because it’s the only game in town, really,” said Lubin.

The way he sees the world, ConsenSys is more dependent on a decentralized ecosystem succeeding than it is any one project. “We’d probably give up if…a decentralized World Wide Web never materialized,” said Lubin, pointing to decentralized bandwidth, identity, and lots of other interoperating decentralized protocols.

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Of course, the elephant in the room was the ETH price, which since plummeting has been stuck in a rut and unable to break out of a pretty narrow range. Lubin, however, was with Vitalik Buterin from almost the beginning and has seen market cycles come and go. He is playing the long game.

“Since the start of the ecosystem and since 2009, we’ve seen many incredible rises in the price of these tokens followed by very significant corrections. So the most significant correction took us back one year, which was 5,000-times more valuable than when ETH was initially launched. In that context, it’s not so horrifying.”

Builders Ignoring the Market

When times are good in the market, it brings attention to the ecosystem. Technologists and entrepreneurs are busy building. “There is way more activity in our ecosystem now than a year or 18 months ago,” said Lubin. Fewer people pay attention to the price of the token. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing because there’s a far greater increase in the number of people building things such as privacy and confidentiality systems, scalability solutions, and ETH 2.0.

Before Ethereum can reach its wide-scale adoption, it needs to scale. Currently, it can complete between 14 and 27 transactions per second (TPS), the latter of which reflects tiny transactions. Technologies such as Plasma are Layer 2 technologies that will bolster Ethereum’s scalability and make the blockchain much more useful. With Layer 2 technologies, smart contracts on Ethereum can run off-chain.

“Ethereum 2.0 is coming…we have eight teams building it,” said Lubin, adding that they’re in “phase 0 of four phases.” This base layer upon which we continue to build Layer 2 scalability solutions is going to expand by at least 1,000-fold over the next 18-24 months from now. It will keep expanding after that.”

Ethereum and Scalability

As for the broader blockchain movement, he is similarly bullish. Lubin, who is a Princeton grad, pointed to the size of the global economy, which is $80 trillion.

“When the blockchain fully ramifies and in 10-20 years the economy will probably be 10x as large. The blockchain will probably be the majority part of that; in dollar terms, a lot,” he said.

Lubin is confident about the potential of the blockchain across sectors of the economy. There isn’t an industry out there that doesn’t need trust and agreements, which are what the blockchain provides. Developers can build platforms that facilitate collaboration over competition. It reflects a paradigm shift from the way that the world works today.

Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange Gatecoin will shut down and enter liquidation after an unsuccessful attempt to recover funds lost in a dispute with a former payment services provider.

Announced yesterday, the company distributed the message to customers via their corporate website. There, the team behind the project explained the suspension of the service occurred after months of battling to stay afloat, and ultimately, a court order to wind-up and cease operations immediately.

In its public statement, the company blamed its prior payment service provider (PSP) for this situation. The exchange said it began having issues with banking services in September 2018, after the sudden freeze of its bank accounts in Hong Kong.

In November last year, Gatecoin announced that it would resume operations after resorting to an unnamed European payments processor – ”a fully regulated payment institution by the French regulator” they stated – and a bank in Switzerland.

The team stated:

“Even after we managed to mitigate our loss by replacing that PSP with more reliable alternatives to process our clients’ transfers in September 2018, the situation did not improve because that PSP retained a large part of our funds.”

The exchange finished it’s message assuring customers that it expects to redistribute its remaining assets to the creditors.

Since 2016, the exchange has had a series of troubles unrelated to its banking services, as it lost 185,000 ETH and 250 BTC in a cyber attack. Still, it appears the exchange will become the latest casualty of struggles to obtain adequate financial services.

In March, Bloomberg reported on how industry startups remain unable to even open up standard checking accounts. The article profiled stories from even established cryptocurrency businesses and raised the profile of what appears to be an ongoing issue.

At press time, CoinDesk was unable to obtain the full court order detailing the liquidation process. According to a discussion on a Reddit dedicated to the exchange platform, customers, including those who say they lost funds in the 2016 hack, also appear in the dark on whether they will be reimbursed.

Over the past couple of weeks Bitcoin has been caught in an incredibly tight trading range between roughly $3,900 and $4,000, with strong resistance existing at the latter price point. Earlier today, BTC saw increased levels of volatility, but it has since stabilized back to the lower-$3,900 region.One analyst is now pointing out that Bitcoin’s current price action is looking strikingly similar to that which was seen in early-November just prior to BTC’s price crash that sent it from over $6,000 to nearly $3,000.Bitcoin Experiences Slight Levels of Volatility Before Stabilizing Above $3,900At the time of writing Bitcoin is trading up marginally at its current price level of $3,930 and is up from its daily lows of slightly below $3,900. Earlier today, BTC experienced some slight levels of volatility after it quickly climbed to nearly $4,000 before being swiftly rejected and falling to below $3,900. It has since stabilized back to its current price levels.Recently, analysts have been pointing out that the cryptocurrency’s recent price action is nearly identical to that seen in early-November of 2018, where BTC traded sideways at roughly $6,400 for an extended period of time before plummeting to lows of $3,200.Moon Overlord, a popular cryptocurrency analyst, recently pointed this out, concisely stating that the crypto’s current price action is “feeling very similar [to] before the drop from 6k.”Bitcoin price action feeling very similar before the drop from 6k no?— Moon Overlord (@MoonOverlord) March 14, 2019Moon Overlord further asserted his postulation that the crypto is trading in a very similar way to how it was during last November, highlighting the similarities in the two charts.$BTC mirror world, times almost up ⌛️ pic.twitter.com/F8em6QQd7E— Moon Overlord (@MoonOverlord) March 14, 2019Assuming that it is replicating its previous price action and a further price drop is inevitable, then BTC will likely face increased selling pressure in the very near future.Analysts Growing Increasingly Bearish on BTCOther prominent analysts have recently asserted generally bearish views on Bitcoin, with would support Moon Overlord’s theory that Bitcoin may be currently gearing up for a large drop similar to that seen in late-2018.Jani Ziedins of the CrackedMarket blog shared his thoughts on Bitcoin while speaking to MarketWatch, pointing to the strong resistance at $4,000 as one possible reason the cryptocurrency may soon see further losses.“Bitcoin is still doing a lot of nothing as it seems stuck under $4k resistance. In the opposite move to the broad market, a trade that refuses to rebound will eventually tumble lower,” he explained.Ziedins further asserted that one negative headline relating to the crypto industry or Bitcoin in particular could be all it takes to lead its price to plunge lower.“Buyers are not interested in pushing BTC any higher and that means all we are doing is waiting here until the next negative headline comes along and knocks us lower. What seems low is giving every indication it wants to keep going lower.”Assuming that Bitcoin is currently mimicking its November 2018 price action, then it is inevitable that the cryptocurrency will soon see a sudden influx of massive selling pressure – but until this occurs, the theory remains nothing more than a possibility that traders should be aware of.Featured image from Shutterstock.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange announced today that it will not be adding any new Bitcoin futures of any kind this month. They went out of their way to announce as much, likely to tamp down the rowdy crypto press, who have a tendency to latch onto stories and run with them.

CFE is not adding a Cboe Bitcoin (USD) (“XBT”) futures contractfor trading in March 2019.CFE is assessing its approach with respect to how it plans to continue to offer digital asset derivatives for trading. While it considers its next steps, CFE does not currently intend to list additional XBT futures contracts for trading. Currently listed XBT futures contracts remain available for trading.

New contracts were added in many other categories, including Volatility Index futures. Funny, it seems a Bitcoin ETF would fit in nicely there. Except it doesn’t exist, and won’t for an indeterminate amount of time. Index funds are more popular anyway, according to Investopedia.

ETF When?

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Current Bitcoin futures remain available, as noted. The last one expires on June 19th. XBTJ19, which closes next month date-wise, has a settlement price of $3847. The bears might win those shares, as the last closing price shown on the page was $3850. Bitcoin still has a few weeks to pull upwards, and people like Tom Lee think that process will begin sooner than later, with a crescendo in August.

When Moon?

Futures sellers in that market also have plenty of time to change their mind. But, the people on the bear side were prescient, to say the least.

Note: now we veer into the author’s opinion.

The crypto space is full to the brim with people who call a bottom or a top here and there, depending on their philosophical reasoning. With losses topping 50%, you’ll see people arguing that we’re nearing some critical stage or another.

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The best route for the individual investor to take is to trust themselves, just as the loud mouths do.

Bitcoin in its present form is a speculative asset, and playing the futures market is a glorious way to prove as much. You can believe in the long-term viability of a crypto economy but still have a pessimistic short-term outlook.

Or you can decide to play to the base and shout grand predictions from the roof top.

The unit of Cboe Global Markets said Thursday that it would not add a new bitcoin futures market for March, citing a need to review how it approaches the space.

“CFE is not adding a Cboe Bitcoin (USD) (“XBT”) futures contract for trading in March 2019,” the futures exchange said in a notice to traders Thursday afternoon, adding:

“CFE is assessing its approach with respect to how it plans to continue to offer digital asset derivatives for trading. While it considers its next steps, CFE does not currently intend to list additional XBT futures contracts for trading.”

However, Cboe said currently listed bitcoin futures contracts will remain available for trading. That means the last contracts listed, XBTM19, will expire in June.

Cboe, along with rival futures exchange CME Group, made a big splash in late 2017 when each introduced bitcoin futures contracts. The exchanges’ futures are cash-settled, meaning at the end of the contract one party pays the other the difference between the spot and futures prices of bitcoin in U.S. dollars.

By contrast, up-and-coming competitors Bakkt and ErisX plan to offer physically settled futures contracts, in which real bitcoin is delivered to the buyer.

The unit of Cboe Global Markets said Thursday that it would not add a new bitcoin futures market for March, citing a need to review how it approaches the space.

“CFE is not adding a Cboe Bitcoin (USD) (“XBT”) futures contract for trading in March 2019,” the futures exchange said in a notice to traders Thursday afternoon, adding:

“CFE is assessing its approach with respect to how it plans to continue to offer digital asset derivatives for trading. While it considers its next steps, CFE does not currently intend to list additional XBT futures contracts for trading.”

However, Cboe said currently listed bitcoin futures contracts will remain available for trading. That means the last contracts listed, XBTM19, will expire in June.